Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 135 - With Dan Hart

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A from the tropical paradise of Costa Rice with Henry Akins Jiu Jitsu black belt Dan Hart. 1. Misconceptions about having a black belt 2. Why does BJJ cost so much 3. Advice for someone just starting 4. I have a wrestling background, should I shelve my experience or build my game around it 5. Competitions...Necessary, required, avoid at older ages.... Enjoy

Okay, got the red smoke. Gun runs. North and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on winning, man. It can't be. Can't be cleared hot. How do you like the new green screen for the studio? It's pretty rad. With the actual ocean behind us.

For the actual ocean behind this and if people hear birds and shit, it's because there's birds and shit. And we're doing this. It's sunset and Costa Rica. All right. So I have four questions. Before I forget, Hero BJJ. Yeah, so we're down in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Andy and I just got done with a charity camp that I taught down here for Hero Academy. It's a 501 3C based out of the United States,

but the actual academy's down here. So Ron Jarman, our friend, runs it. And they put on jiu-jitsu camps throughout the year. And all the money that they raised for those goes to support the kids that train there. They bust them from school directly to the Academy facilitates them being able to get school supplies, leadership training, obviously jiu-jitsu training, and bust them home. So while their parents are at work, they aren't at

home. We got to be a part of their Christmas party this year, which was pretty rad. A bunch of geese got donated that were Hero Academy geese all logoed out and everything. So for these kids, 200 geese, it was the first time they ever had a new gey. Backpacks, it was like notebooks. I was able to throw and some rash cards because I had some, you know, not to say that I was trying to be super charitable. I was like, fuck, I can't sell these super small rash card sizes. I know who needs these. But that was cool to see all of them come in there, and I hope it has a huge impact.

How did you find Ron and Hero the first time? So I started coming down here, I think eight or nine years ago when Henry Aiken, my coach, did his first camp down here. Hero wasn't here yet. And then Rome Zav founded Hero, and we met him. He was originally down here. And then we started doing some stuff back in the States. We did a couple events at one of my restaurants, D.C. Cobbs, help support them and raise money.

And then as I went through the ranks and got my black belt and Ron ended up taking over Hero, we decided to do 100% charity camp down here. So for my camp, I don't take any money at all. We donate 100%. So two years in a row, we've sold it out and been able to donate about 20 grand per year. Which is ridiculous. It's legit. And it's awesome for them because their expenses.

being down here are a little bit lower. So I think Ron told us about 4K a month it costs them to operate. So it's five months, damn near half their operating costs. That's awesome. All right. So I got four questions. All of these are jiu-jitsu related. I was thinking about it. One of them that didn't come up, but I'm curious, I've asked pretty much every black belt that I know. But what's in your mind the most common misconception people have about receiving your jiu-jitsu black belt? Well, I think that's, you know, I think there's a lot of misconceptions. One, I think everybody but black belts thinks that, well, once you get a black belt, then that just means you know everything.

I've heard the exact opposite from everybody who's ever got a black belt. They're like, son of a bitch, now I have to start learning this. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you get your black belt. I mean, when you're a white belt and you're starting out, I mean, a black belt's like a mythical creature, right? I mean, for me, and I haven't been training that long about 12 years, but we had a black belt instruct. but then there was one other purple belt in the whole academy,

and he trained somewhere else. So, like, when he would come, he just destroy everyone. We were all white belts and, like, one blue belt. I was like, I'll never be that good. I'll never be able to do that. And then once you get there, you're like, ah, really not that good. Then you get your black belt,

and you're like, I'm really, really not that good. Oh, man. Yeah, I'd say 99.9.9% of the black belts that I've encountered say exactly the same thing. And then there's the 0.01% who are like, No, I'm just as good as you think I'm going to be. I pretty much know everything, and I'm here to fucking smack asses and take names. I mean, even Henry, who you've rolled with a ton, and, you know, unfortunately.

Yeah, unfortunately, it's right. When I talk to him about it, he's like, you know, he talks about rolling with Hickson and, you know, his experiences of that, and all the errors and holes he thinks he has in his game. Meanwhile, most people think I'm pretty decent at jujitsu. I can't score a point on the man. Yeah. He'll, every time I roll with Henry, he says the same thing. He's like, hey, man, come on.

Let's just move around a little bit. That's what he opens with. And then he goes, do you want to start on top? I'm like, why? For the five seconds until I'm on the bottom, like, fuck. If he starts making the weird noises, like, ooh, then you know you're in trouble and you're going to get smashed. God, it hurts so bad. It hurts so bad.

It's so eye-opening, though, as to what is possible in jiu-jitsu. That's what I leave rolling sessions with him with, is this understanding of what's actually possible. Well, and I've had, you know, it's interesting. My students have asked me before, like, so what's it like when you roll with Henry? Like, it's pretty back and forth or whatever. I'm like, it's like me rolling with new white belt, him rolling with me. All right. All right, four questions.

This one actually comes up pretty often. It's about cost. Maybe a short answer for Florida Friday someday, but why is jujitsu so goddamn expensive? It's like the rich man's martial art. But then all those rich guys tell everyone else they should do jiu-jitsu. I feel like it's a glitch in the matrix. I don't think jiu-jitsu is expensive at all. I don't either.

You know, most gyms have a trial day at minimum, some a week, some a month, all kinds of gyms. My gym used to run, you know, $99 trials for a month or Christmas specials. I mean, at most our gym, if you have no contract, your month a month on everything is $220 a month. You know, I'd go back to the idea of what's the cost of not training and the possibility of, you know, you getting attacked or something else happened. And I think you can relate to this, too. I had a very different friend group before I started training jiu-sitsu. I still have friends, of course, that don't train.

But most of my friends train and they're people I met through jiu-jitsu, or I've talked my friends into training or they've discovered it on their own. Most places, you know, we offer a six-month membership for $1,000. I don't think $1,000 for six months of training is that much. And you can buy a ghee on Amazon for $70 or $60.

You don't have to go buy, you know, a wander-lust travel ghee or, you know something else unless you're training at one of these gyms that requires you to buy the full kit oh the gym specific that's right yeah and i would you know generally steer you away from that unless it's your only option you know if that's the the gym's goal is to just make money off you i do get that and you know we live in opposite sides of the country and i think the costs are pretty relatable i'm sure places like la some places it can be more expensive but you know people will tell me they think something's expensive and then they're sitting at a bar spending 100

$150 a night to drink vodka they could get for $20 at home. Yeah, I was trying to think about the price structure in Calispell. I mean, the medium income in Calispo is probably somewhere between $30,000 to $40,000 for a single income earner, probably double that if it's a dual family income. But $200, you know, like, what's, what value are you getting from the $200? Because I think it's about the same at the SBG gyms. And, yeah, I mean. Well, I know it's pretty.

Yeah, I know it's pretty similar because Travis helped me set up my pricing structure, you know, kind of what they did. Yeah, Starbucks, cable, all kinds of other things. Or eating out twice a month is going to be the same thing. Yeah, it's, I think you hit it on the head with the, what's the price of not being prepared if something does happen. And I think people get this warped mind. Like, you know, they get this planet fitness model. Well, I can belong to Planet Fitness for $18 a month or I don't know whatever it is. Everyone I know who belongs to Planet Fitness doesn't go there.

That's their business model. You know, yeah. They don't want people that train. So their business model, I know a guy who used to be a manager there, he could open a drawer and it was just racks of IDs that people had paid in full for and they never came to get them. And the guy was like, these are the clients we want. Yeah, 100%. Whereas, you know, if you don't show up to a gym that's run well, you're getting a phone call. Like, hey, Andy, what's going on?

Haven't seen you in a couple days. Just making sure you're okay. I want to make sure you're getting back in here. Kind of think about it. I mean, I've only been at it for just over four years, most of my, not all of my closest friends because I obviously had a large. of time before jiu-jitsu. But the people I spend the most time with now, I mean, look, we're in Costa Rica, we've come here

multiple times. You and I basically travel all around the world to fight each other. It's ridiculous. We could just go to visit each other. We don't go on any trips where there's not some component of jiu-jitsu, right? Even when we went to Hawaii to go diving, we're still finding a place to train. God, I'm trying to think, I can't remember the last time I actually did a trip

where I didn't train. It's just such a naturally ingrained part of my life now, and especially being married to Leah, who she is a coach, and it's what she does, It's, yeah, all of my closest friends constantly are trying to break my limbs and choke me. Yeah, I deeply appreciate it, actually. All right, where to go? All right, I've been a listener since episode one.

That's a long time and hopefully it's improved since then. On your show and others, I have heard tales of the dark arts of Jiu-Jitsu. And today, finally, I've made the decision. I'd like to learn about it and book my first class at a martial arts gym. What's the best piece of advice you'd have for a soon-to-be brand-new white belt? So, I mean, I think that's a pretty broad question. First of, it depends on where you live. Do you live in an area like, you know, even where I live, there's gyms 15 minutes in multiple

directions. So you've got to find a gym that fits what you want. And, you know, I used to be pretty hardcore on kind of my way was the way it had to be if you're not learning self-defense practical Jiu-Jitsu. You're wasting your time. I've totally done a 180 on that. If you're training anything, I think it's worthwhile. And if you want to compete a bunch, it's probably a different school for you.

But, you know, I mean, there's all the. cliche stuff, tap early, tap off in, you know, don't be in a rush, whatever. I'd say the biggest thing is to protect yourself from getting hurt. Because if you're off the mats, you're not training, you're not getting better. And I'm sure you've seen it. I definitely have seen it. And we try to do our best to shield. Mainly we try to shield new people from themselves, not from other people hurting them,

but them hurting themselves, trying to twist out of stuff, do things they shouldn't. And, you know, it's obviously something you see a lot more with males because the ego is a lot higher. Yeah. I think, you know, and I'd be interested to hear Leah's perspective on this, I think it's way easier to coach women. They're much more coachable. They listen better. They don't come from a physical world in the way that guys do. Like, my old job was so physically demanding.

And it was like a daily fucking unzip your fly dick measuring context. Like, hey, we're going to go into the gym and we're going to work out and we're going to compete. Oh, we're going to go to the range and we're going to shoot and we're going to compete. Hey, we're going to put these fucking boxing gloves on, which we don't even know how to put on properly. and beat the shit. It was completely male dominated. And so the physicality drives the whole thing. And yeah, when I owned a CrossFit gym, they're more, they listen. That's step fucking one. They actually, men, I think it goes in their ears too, and they're like, whatever, bro. I read about this in men's fitness. They listen and then they'll do what you say. Yeah, and I've heard Mickey talk about that too,

carry trainer that when he teaches firearms instruction that like he can take brand new shooters who are women and really get them to do a bunch of stuff and elevate, whereas guys who've barely shot just want to pretend like they know stuff and he can't get them to listen. Yeah. If somebody goes to a sport-based jujitsu school, do you think that they need to be reminded from time to time that some of the principles that they're learning

would not be best to try in it? And I hate the real-world environment, but the type of jujitsu that you learned from Henry and that you model your coaching after, because I've spent fucking hours that you're, gym now, we've trained together a bunch. They're the same, and it is definitely like, foundationally based, does this work

in a confrontation, does this work in a fight, am I safe, can I create distance, can I access tools? Sport-based, you just, I mean, the Hawaii trip that we went on. And I had a great time at the gym. I'm not saying anything negative. We were rolling out, the guy's like, hey, I'm teaching a half-guard class,

and it's like, wow, I kind of like half-guard, so I'm interested to see what you learn, and I am I'm not a leg lock player. I have an understanding of it to try to keep myself safe and try to avoid early on, but I would say it was a much more sport-centric half-garde class

that we were taught for sure. And if you tried any of that in the street, you would get your teeth knocked down the back your fucking throat. Yeah, 100%. So what's the balance there in reminding people that, hey, if you're looking at this as only a sport,

rock on. I think as long as your students know that's what they're learning and that's what they want to learn, it's fine. I mean, it's not everyone has to do what we want to do. For me, that's why I started training and I wanted to fight and do MA and do those things. And, you know, my first coach, Mike Budnick used to have a two-part rule.

Will it work on someone bigger and stronger than me? And will it work if someone's trying to punch me in the face? And I still try to just abide by that. And, you know, there's nothing wrong. I think leg locks are fun. I like to play around with them a little bit. You know, I told you before, blue purple belt. I did a ton of them.

It's something I'm kind of not getting back into, but trying to understand better because the new wave stuff, I'm not great with. You know, I just think you've got to figure out what, you know, why are you here? What's your why? If your goal is that you want to be able to defend yourself and defend your family, then I think you need to think about where you're training. Yeah, the new school stuff, certainly a lot of it looks cool. Like from the outside, you're like, holy shit, those guys are just transitioning through

position. And I'm certainly not, like I said, I'm not a lower body player. I want to understand enough to stay safe. But in my limited experience, I have watched that pressure-based style, wilt a lot of the movement based and the inversion based and rotation. And some of that stuff needs someone to also scramble with you in order to facilitate what they want to do. So that's a different feeling too. I mean, we've talked about that, rolling with some of those guys and experienced some of it in our travels of,

wow, if I just kind of lean on this person, it tends to shut down their game because I'm not willing to move real fast and do, you know, all the things they want to do. And, you know, at my gym, you know, we train once a week with small gloves and spar and stand up and do everything. get to find out, you know. Sometimes you think you can't get punched in the face or people think they can't and they find out they can. Like, ooh, I don't know if I like this position as much. Going back to the White Belt, what would you, like somebody brand new, what would, what kind of expectation would you say for somebody in their first six months?

Like, what should they expect? I mean, it's just an ass beating for six months, right? I mean, if you want to do it right and you get obsessed with it like you did or I did or a lot of people. It's still an ass beating for six months. You're looking at ceiling tiles. Yeah, you're just looking at ceiling. tiles, getting smashed, trying to pick some stuff up. And, you know, if you have some

wrestling background or something, like, you know, my stepdaughter's boyfriend, Felipe, who's with us this week, he's not trained much, good wrestling background, strong kid. You ask him, how's it going? I'm getting my ass kicked. Well, that's how it's supposed to be, and that's what's going to happen, even if you are strong and athletic and all of that stuff. And, you know, you've got to be willing to take that. And then, like I said, not get injured. You've got to be willing to tap and not struggle. And then that depends on your age, too. Right. At our age, it's different. The way that we recover. and the things that our bodies can do.

I got out of bed today and my hip was like, like, ah! Well, some of the Americana stuff I taught this week, I talked about it. If you pin my arm and get under it, okay, I'm tapping. That's it, or it's tearing. I've been off the mats, I think, twice. Once it was from a Camura. Yeah, when I first, the day I met you were in a weekend, you were in a sling.

And it's so, and I was there to watch the seminar, and I do agree that if you are injured, you can definitely go and pick stuff up, but God damn it, it's emotionally difficult to sit there and watch people doing something you want to do. and you're like, fuck, this is six weeks. Yeah, I mean, I admire the hell lot of people that can still come to class, injured,

and watch and retain stuff and ask questions. I was never able to do that for a couple of reasons. One, and the main reason is, I would convince myself that I would find a way to work around it and still try to train. I'll just hold on to my belt. Yeah, actually, that injury that I had, I probably should have taken six to eight weeks off.

I was back on the mats like three weeks later with my hand in my belt. Yeah, of course. And it, you know, and then it's like, no, I don't like this business. I'll just use my hand just for a second. And then you're like, son of a bitch. Yeah, it's the worst. Getting injured those setbacks, Denver's going through it right now.

Like, he's kind of dealing with some injuries. And you can just tell he wants to roll so bad and he just can't. And he's one of the, he's done a good job of, you know, like he did a lot of the drills this week. And then he did kind of some flowy rolls with Mickey and some other people where he like picked his deliberate partners. And even as a white belt, he recognizes like, hey, I know. this person is safe. I know this person is safe. That guy that hurt me, he's probably not safe. Yeah, definitely probably not safe. Yeah, and he has enough tools now where he can protect himself in most of the situations. That was one of the hardest phases for me to get through is I just didn't

understand what was happening. Like, I would get caught. I'm like, I feel like I'm totally fucked here, but I don't exactly know where the bear trap is going to come from. Yeah, that's the big thing, because everything seems like a mistake, right? And you don't know which way to turn or not turn or what's in or out. And then, you know, you know, you know, you know, you're going to You got higher level people that are kind of tricking you, pretending like they want to do one thing, so you turn into them or away from them. Yeah, you're like, oh, they just opened a door from it.

It's like, yeah, because they want you to go through it, asshole. All right, so speaking of wrestling background, so coming from a college wrestling background, just curious what our thoughts are on somebody transitioning into jiu-jitsu. Stay away. I don't want to. God, they should have to wear a sign. Should I be trying to learn every move in the book

and throw shit at the wall until something sticks, or capitalize on the wrestling background and build a jujitsu game, of that. I mean, grappling is grappling on some level. You see all these weird arguments and sub threads online about sombo versus BJJ and people talking about American Jiu-Jitsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I mean... Samba where they wear the shoes and the ghee top? Yeah. Yeah. Super odd pairing, but I mean, I'm not a fashion. Yeah, and I don't know the rules, but I

think there's things that are allowed and aren't allowed. I know some guys that have done some Samba competitions. But anyways, I mean, grappling's grappling. You should use your wrestling, but if you were a lot of you, solely on your wrestling, you're going to have a hard time getting your BJJ to work because your wrestling is so far ahead. And a good wrestler is going to be able, even against the black belt, if we start standing, probably most black belts, to take them down. They're going to understand some weight distribution and pressure. And you look at some of the guys like Nikki Rod and his brother, who, I mean, they're training full time in a ton now and for years, but with very minimal

jiu-jitsu experience, they're going to the biggest tournaments in the world at ADCC and Inogi. you know, killing people. Didn't Nikki win as a Blue Belt? I don't know if he won. He might have won trials. And he played. I think he got silver at ADACC. But he was just barbecuing motherfigars.

Yeah, awesome. And I mean, you know, Denver and I were there with Henry this year watching it. And it's awesome. But yeah, I mean, I would lean into the wrestling thing. But, you know, we have a lot of wrestlers at our gym. And I think your jihitsu is so far behind that if you don't learn to try to rely on it, it's never going to catch up. But, you know, your takedown game, I mean, I wouldn't be trying to learn a bunch of judo and other stuff.

I'd be concentrating on that and how does wrestling fit in? Okay, let's take people down past the guard, super top pressure oriented and smash people, which is, you know, all of what I want to do anyway. I don't know a lot about wrestling. I don't know the rules of it at all. But in my experience, rolling with people who have a wrestling background, especially early on, they're allergic to having their back touch the ground. And so they're great on that, like, grind into you. But if you can get them flipped on their back, they're like a turtle that's stuck and they don't like it. And it's definitely the deficiency in their game.

But they don't want to go there because it's ingrained in them that if their back touches the ground, they have to get off of it. Well, you know, people start wrestling at like three, four, five years old. They're doing that. And then, like, some of my students, like Derek, starts training jiu-jitsu in his late 40s. It's pretty tough, something you've been doing that long and he was a wrestling coach. But he recognizes that and he'll play off of its back. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, yeah, if you could go into the gym and, first off, there's never been any room that I'm able to murk. It's just like, I'm going to dominate all of you in stand-up. It's like, well, and all of our high school-aged kids that come in that are like, what more can I do? I'm like, go out for wrestling. Go out for wrestling. You're 14, be a wrestler. And then bring that in here and combine it, and you're going to have some really good results.

My stand-up is by far my weakest aspect. Mine too. And I am so incredibly jealous of those wrestling bastards who come in there. and then all I try to do is get him on their back like a turtle. So I roll with Jim Miller, the UFC fighter. I thought I had swept him twice. One, two things going in my favor. Actually, one big one.

We were wearing a ghee. I grabbed the hold of that motherfucker and just drug him into my guard. And I scissors swept him. I have never seen somebody's hips turn back over so quickly. And after the second time I tried it, I'm like, I'm not even going to try to sweep you anymore. because I had the full scissors sweep and he just went in the air and landed back. I'm like, holy shit.

That's awesome. The only thing that saved me is that his grip burned out. All right, this one's about competition, and I think you're a good person to ask about this because you're very active competitive competitively, and you have a lot of people who are active, a little bit longer. So a little background, two-stripe light belt enrolled in an executive jiu-jitsu program. I'm not, oh, Reed AARP, it's an elder statesman. Mostly middle-aged men with families, full-time jobs.

So these are not professional fighters. Busy schedule who gather at 0500, two days a week to roll, 43 and picked up BJJ about two years ago, which is right about the age that I picked it up as well. Worst possible timing, but it's become a foundational pillar in his life. Recently, we've had a migration of younger guys

get some extra training sessions in with the older guys. I admire their drive and willingness to get up and train so early, and they've helped me push the pace during live training. However, it has raised a small issue. I have never had the desire to compete until I started training with these younger guys that do compete. I know that competition is great, but I go to the early class because it's really the only time of my day that I can fit in training. I don't want to give up time with my family to train more in preparation.

And if I'm honest, I have some apprehension about going to competition or about going competition speed with people that I don't know. I imagine full speed at my gym with people you know and competition speed with strangers is very different. Injury is something I do my best to avoid. I have a laundry list of small, but very real injuries accrued through 12 years of an EOD test. and two tours to Iraq and two to Afghanistan. I know you can't make the decision for me. I just want to get your opinion about older BJJ guys competing. What do you think are the possible benefits versus the drawback?

Follow-up question. I remember you mentioning that you wanted to compete, but I don't know if you ever did. If you have any experience competing, how did you find the experience? So I can answer that second. What are your thoughts? So first off, a lot of what he's saying is true. I mean, I don't go enter adult divisions anymore,

but that's the cool thing about Jiu-Jitsu. is even at the world championship level, you can compete against guys that are your age. So, you know, 40-year-old guys, especially at lower belts, maybe a black belt, there's a lot of guys that do it for a living, but 40-year-old white belts going to a competition, those guys all have jobs, families, you know, stuff they want to go.

They're a hobbyist at best. Yeah. I've been tapped in tournaments. I don't know how many times, but enough that I don't remember how many times. I don't have any injuries that I can think of offhand that have come from tournaments. People are generally respectful.

as long as you understand when to tap and how to tap, you know, it's not, you're not seeing guys get their arms, legs, whatever ripped off. And, you know, they do have medics there. And there are people getting hurt. But, you know, Masters World's, there's like 8 or 9,000 people there. I see the medics working on people. There's not an abundance of people getting worked on. And let's be clear, most of those people, if they do get hurt, they are taking it too far. Well, or they were already hurt, right?

Yeah. What tends to happen is a guy who's got a knee that's already totally screwed up and already had surgery. and has a knee brace, tries to Uchimata somebody in that super heavyweight division and blows out his own knee. Or they're clearly caught in an arm more. And normally they would have tapped with the regular training partner. And now they're like fighting it for this heroic. And then it does catch and all the slack is out. Yes, of course.

It's not the person you're rolling against. It's not his job to tap. It's your job to tap. So I think a lot of that in that competition setting comes from people's desire to not want to quit. We do have a lot of students that compete. It wasn't always that way. I mean, for a while, it was just me going to competitions, and then Katie started coming to some. Derek started to come at some, and now I think Chicago Open, we had like 30 people compete.

It's fun to compete with the team. It's fun to have your coaches there. I'm a highly competitive person. I mean, we're out racing golf carts around Tamarindo or, you know, whatever we can do for fun. You know, I think it's a commodity that goes with that, you know, being able to train with the team and do that. But if someone doesn't want to compete, I don't think that's a huge deal either, either because they're worried about their health. or they don't have the time, the commitment, you know, whatever it may be. But that's something to look at, too.

What are you afraid of? I mean, there's small competitions that are local in most areas. I know in your area there's not a ton, but, you know, your gym has one that they put on to make up for that. So I think everybody should try it, but I don't force anybody to compete. I think, you know, if the age thing is a concern, that's why they have master's division. No one's saying you need to go do the adult absolute at your local tournament. then it's not wise in your 40s. Yeah.

You're going to get what you were seeking out if you go into the adult division in your 40s. Yeah. I mean, generally, I'll do absolute divisions if I meddle at IBJJF because it's fun. And again, I'm just not that worried about, you know, getting hurt. I know where my limits are. Just like we talked about the Americana. Somebody pins my arm and is about to lock it up. It's over for me.

I'm not going to, you know, take a hundred to one shot of spazzing out. I'm just tapping and I'll go on. It's also not, you know, anything I do is important to me. Everything I do, I do with 100% effort, but I'm also realistic about things. I mean, I'm not winning 80cc here. Yeah. For the person that wrote this, you know, the one thing that's stuck out me is that they're having feelings of apprehension about competition.

And I think that's actually good. I think that's something that you should actually lean into and that you have nothing to lose. Like obviously, you know, send the email, we can't make the choice for you. But I would say to go and compete one time. And if you like facing that apprehension and you feel that it's going to enhance your game, then stick with it. If you don't like it, then move on.

I mean, there's nothing to be lost. Yeah, look, every competition I do seems like a good idea when I sign up. And as I'm training for it, it seems like a good idea. And then about a week out, I'm like, oh, man, why did I do this? And then like the day before, because I'm usually cutting a little bit of weight or whatever, I'm like, this is so dumb. And then right before, I'm like, why did I talk myself into this? I'm not doing this anymore. And then the second we slap hands, I'm like, hell yeah, this is awesome.

Win or lose. You know, I have a great time out there. I love cornering people, coaching people. That's a great time, too. You know, if no one at his school is competing, it's probably not as fun, but I'd gather that whatever school he's at, there are other people. And, you know, especially if he can get a group of guys from, you know, his executive class that want to do it. It doesn't have to be a ton, two or three of them, and they can get ready and work on takedowns and work on the point system and, you know, whatever else they want to. Find a local competition, get a coach to go with them and go have some fun.

So I'm going to refer to my judjitsu from here on out. I do executive jihis. It's kind of an awesome description. Yeah, I, so did the second part. I did get, I competed once at a Naga right when I had gotten my purple belt. I enjoyed it. But I also, one thing that I have noticed is that people have really large amounts of performance anxiety. Yeah.

And I'm not sure if that is, because like at a normal open mat, like I'm just completely lost in the role that I'm doing. And it is a little bit different at a competition. and everybody is watching you, and I feel like that could nerd some people out. I'm at a point in my life where I just truly don't give a shit, but I think it does increase that performance anxiety, and I have seen some people vapor lock, and I think if they continue to do that more,

they would work through that, and it would really improve their game. Well, I think it takes time, too. I mean, you know, my wife, Katie, got silver at Masters Worlds this year. She's had some really dismal performances at the World Championships and Pan Ams and everything else, And one of the things I would always say to her when we're training, I'm like, at the gym, if you can roll like this in competition, you're going to murder people. And it just took a while and it took her doing some smaller tournaments to not kind of,

like you said, vapor lock and freeze up where I'm like, I don't know why you would do that or not do this or whatever. And once she kind of got out of her own head and got coachable on some stuff, you know, she went out there and did great. I enjoyed it because it was an unknown. Like I've even rolled enough with people at Alpha now that I know their game and they know my game. Yeah. So it becomes, it's not like it's necessarily a known quantity because you're, you know, you're both working your way through what's going on.

But man, standing across from somebody you've never met is definitely you're like, oh, now this fucking thing is going to go. Well, and sometimes you see stuff where it's like, you know, I've had students run into stuff where they're like, I've never had anyone do spider guard because we don't have a lot of that at our gym. Or I've never had anyone do a lasso guard or whatever. So we've got to spend some time when we get back working on it or, you know, whatever. But you never know what you're going to get. And that's also part of the cool part. Yeah. So I enjoyed it.

I actually, I would, I think I would enjoy competing more because it'd give me an additional thing to do with Leah because she still wants to compete. She is, fuck, she's competed a lot coming up. Multiple time world champion. I just, my schedule is so weird that it's tough for me to block off and be like, okay, I'll give it. I'm going to, for a month, this is what I'm going to focus on because I have to say yes to a lot of other things that come up. And I don't know. If I would like to compete at the, at the master's level, just because. I enjoy it. I enjoy a competition.

I came from a community of people. I mean, Jesus, everything was a competition. What kind of bretos do you get? You know, Carnie Asada with Rice, I'll take what he got plus 10%. It's just like for my entire life. So it's, it has been enjoyable for sure. I don't think there's any negative aspect to it unless, you know, I guess the first question was about cost. You know, tournaments are usually 100 to 200 bucks.

Maybe that's prohibitive to some people. And probably travel and hotel, you know, so that's going to cost a bit more. said it's also optional though too. And maybe you in the maybe there's local like the Gorilla Cup is what the one that SVG does up in Calisville. I think they do it twice a year. It's mostly kids but there's hundreds of kids and so that's a great exposure at a much lower cost and they actually the money they do make off it they put it right back into their funds so they can have other people travel. So yeah it's like a win-win and all your friends are sitting there watching you which is the exact opposite of open mat when nobody's paying

attention to shit. Well and I think a lot of gyms do do inter-squad tournament it's not something we've ever done, but I love the idea. I think it's a super good way to get people. And I think I've heard the Gorilla Cup describe this way, too, is like it's a good way for people to get their feet wet in competition, compete against each other. And you guys have multiple gyms in that area, so you've got people coming up and people even flying in for it, which that's super cool. Yeah, I mean, there's no, there's like zero consequence. You're basically just there with your normal training partners and friends, but you're learning the rule. That's another one that's actually, I really like that tournament too, is you learn the rules.

Yeah. Because if you don't know the rules you might do some shit you're not allowed to do. You might be a purple belt and half guard and go for a knee bar and think you want to match and you're going to stay up like this

and the ref's going to go like this. You're like, but why? He tapped. It's like, yeah, you can't do that. Perfect, dude, we're right at 30 minutes. What do you want to close with? Where can people... So you guys train in the...

Your gym is in Woodstock which for people who don't know this workaround hog day was filmed. Workground hog day. Like literally where it was filmed. We walk out of your gym to get to the Starbucks. and like go around the...

I got an email today that we are voted one of the merriest main streets in the country, so we've got that going. I always have a festival going. It's a suburb of Chicago. It's like northwest, right? Yeah, northwest suburbs, Woodstock, Illinois, 25,000 people.

Alpha BJJ is the name of my gym, so you can find us at Alpha BJJ on Instagram. My personal Instagram is Dan underscore T underscore Hart, H-A-R-T. And this seminar that you taught this year is, it is already up, right? It is up, it is a lot. We've sold about 10 spots already.

Again, 100% of the money goes to charity. We do a bunch of cool stuff down here together, and there's a bunch of stuff you can go out and do. A lot of people bring their kids, families, husbands with wives that don't train and vice versa. So it's really a fun time. Where can they send it for that? HeroBJ.com, I believe, is their website,

or if you just Google Hero BJJ, you can go right on there. And until December 31st, if you enter the code, Smiling Dan, 150, you get $150 off. Yeah, it's well worth the money. I think this is my third trip here with Leah. All of us are coming back in April for your coach for Henry. But what I will say if people want to come here is book your travel early. I may or allegedly have not had a experience where the price of tickets,

especially at the tail end of the year, goes up by thousands of dollars to the point where we're like, hey, Dan, you know that time I was going to come to Costa Rica with you? We're not going to do that. Cool, man. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Marketing is hard.

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